


Remnants Of A Voice And A Smile

by sapphire2309



Series: season seven [2]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Grief, Run On Sentences, Spoilers for 6x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-05-25 06:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6184804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/pseuds/sapphire2309
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the funeral, everyone tries to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remnants Of A Voice And A Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Say Uncle by Vienna Teng. Originally written for elrhiarhodan's promptfest, for her prompt, 'Hiding Out By Day'. Also, I'm still angry at Neal. I have no apologies.  
> Betaed by percygranger, thank you so much!! ^.^ I fiddled with a few things after she went over it, so that's all on me C:  
>  **Disclaimer:** White Collar is Jeff Eastin's brainchild. Not mine.

By some consensus that was reached when she wasn't listening, everyone gathers in their living room.

Elizabeth _doesn't want_ them there, doesn't want anyone but Peter, but Diana's sprawled out on their armchair, with Theo nestled in the crook of her arm, and Moz is standing against the bookshelf, watching over everyone with eyes just short of dry, and Alex may or may not be skulking in a corner, conveniently body blocked by two agents who are milling about, and June is seated on one half of a sofa, sitting too stiffly, she's holding herself together better than most people, but anyone could see her pain, and Lauren is hovering awkwardly next to a sofa, looking very out of place but _there_ , and Jones, surprisingly gentle Jones, is guiding Peter around carefully without looking like he is, it's a masterful job (she doesn't think of where he may have learned it from, she _can't_ ), and Peter isn't the only broken person in the room. The room is full of people who cared for Neal, even if just a little.

But the air is too damned heavy in here, even the hushed whispers are scarce, and Neal's ghost is hanging over them, not a gentle reminder in a whisper of dust, but air weighed down by humidity, their collection of fruit flies will drown and die if this goes on, and she's grown rather fond of those pesky creatures. Or maybe, right now, anything's better than death.

So she clears her throat, draws eyes to herself, and starts talking, even though the silence is uncomfortably heavy just then. "I met Neal a few days after he'd been released. He showed up on our doorstep, smiled at me - I'm sure you know the smile -" and at last, the air lightens a little, a few people crack smiles, she hears at least two chuckles, "and asked me not to mind the blinking red light on his ankle, and if I'd please let him in because there'd been a development in a case."

She can tell that she struck the perfect tone, because Neal's receded now, to the post of gentle reminder, and she didn't want all these people here but now the air's more breathable and her heart feels lighter and maybe she wouldn't have felt it without them.

Peter shakes himself free of Jones, drapes an arm around her waist, kisses her, just next to her ear, she can feel exactly how chapped his lips are, he hasn't been taking care of himself, none of them have. He whispers, softly, "I'll be upstairs, okay?" and she turns to look at him, look into her eyes, before she nods. She has to see, for some reason, has to know exactly how he's feeling, has to let him know how she's feeling, their connection feels absurdly fragile just then. He looks tired, and worn out, and nowhere near capable of standing and listening to people talk about a man he loved, a man who just died, so she nods, and kisses his cheek, and, when he's halfway up the stairs and can't see, she gestures to Moz, _Follow_. Moz won't mind in the least. And she doesn't want Peter to be alone.

Moz moves slowly, more slowly than she's come to expect from him, _god damn you, Neal_ , she can't help but think when she sees Moz, whenever she looks at anyone in this room, why did he have to make so many friends if he was going to die so soon? He breaks hearts everywhere he goes, and she'd think he didn't understand the destruction he’d left in his wake if she'd never gotten a glimpse at the bruises he carried, and when he was alive, it was some small contentment to know that he hurt, too, but now he's gone and there is so much pain here and it's all so unfair, in some way that she's justified in her head. Unfair and cruel and _not on_.

Diana shifts on the sofa, adjusts a sleeping Theo, and says, deadpan, "He flirted with me. Relentlessly. On the first day," and something about what she said and the way she said it sets off a round of light chuckles.

El feels lighter, she does, but she's still so angry at Neal, she doesn’t think it’ll go away that soon or that easily, a few deceptively easy laughs don’t make up for all this pain. But she's done her part. Now she just lets the conversation flow around her and pretends that it actually does something to soothe this bone-deep pain she’s feeling.

-:-

Moz trudges up the stairs at his own leisurely pace. If it wasn't for Elizabeth, he'd be gone already, but he owes her, and he cares about her, so he sticks around, for a little while.

Feelings are oddly blunted, ever since the morgue (he can't, he doesn't think Neal's name, he just did), and somehow, that wearies him even more. But he manages to traverse the stairs (with no less effort than it would take to scale Everest), if only because it carries him out of earshot of the conversation below.

Peter is ridiculously easy to find. Moz checks the bedroom, finds him in the bedroom. But _how_ he finds him...

Peter's curled up into just one corner of his bed, half-buried under a thick comforter. Only his eyes and a few tufts of hair are peeking out. He looks like a child. A tiny, frightened child who's seen worse nightmares than should be legal.

"I cou- I couldn't," Peter whispers between what sound like half choked sobs, "couldn't stay there and listen to them talk about... him. I don't... I'm not ready. I'm not ready to try to move on," and then he shudders and hides his eyes in the comforter too ( _comforter_ , the name feels oddly crude,vile, _dirty_ , in that moment, precious little of its job it's doing in that moment), and Moz really doesn't have an option but to sit next to the mass of blanket and Peter, and rest a hand on what feels like a shoulder, but may also be a thigh, and try to wrap his head around the fact that watching Peter like this is cutting him worse than the memory of Neal's body ( _oh god,_ it's his turn to shudder) in that morgue, mostly because that first image has taken on an air of myth, of unreality, but Peter's right here, and _he's_ right here, and it hurts too damn much, really, too damn much to ever be fair in any equation, and he may have let out a couple of sobs, but he'll never admit to it.

Eventually, he stretches out along one half of the bed, with Peter at his feet (he's short, there's more than enough room for Peter), takes off his glasses, interlocks his fingers and rests his hands on his chest, and just stays there, with someone who understands, who knows what it feels like.

-:-

She spent too much time at his marker. She hadn't meant to, but she saw his name, _Neal George Caffrey_ , an inscription in concrete, just like so many others around his, _that's not how he was meant to go_ , Sara can't help but think, _Neal can't have been reduced to something as ordinary as that_.

And she lingered, for how long she doesn't know, heels gradually sinking deeper into the ground, watching the marker not change, watching it not morph itself into something else, and all this means that she's almost literally falling out of a cab on DeKalb avenue, tossing a few notes she didn't even look at onto the front seat before she did (she's decently sure that they were all dollars, and even more certain that there was at least one hundred note, given how fast he sped away), in heels that are killing her feet, because, again, she spent _too long_ at that stupid marker and now her mascara is running too. Damn it all.

She somehow stumbles her way to the top of the stairs, too fast, as if that can make up for the time she lost, and maybe her mascara isn't as bad as she thinks it is, because the person who opens the door for her ( _Lauren_ , her name is Lauren, she’s from Peter’s office) doesn’t give her the overly concerned look. Or maybe Lauren's not the type to do so.

"Am I too late?" she asks as she walks in, tugging at her dress uncomfortably for what has to be the first time in her life, _god,_ she's a mess. Elizabeth shakes her head warmly, gestures to an empty patch of sofa, and says kindly, "We were just nabbing the culprit of a rash of stapler heists from a year ago," and it takes Sara a full minute to think of Neal, oh god, _Neal_. Her face must have given something away, because El suddenly looks like she understands everything ever, and when she tries to make some feeble excuse about needing to use the bathroom, El nods knowingly and says, "Peter and Moz are upstairs." She casts a longing look in that direction. Maybe she wants to be there too. But even just after a funeral, even at a memorial, someone has to play hostess, and El's probably the only one of them strong enough to do that. El or June. For anyone else, absolutely anyone else, Sara would have been on that list too. So many people would have been on that list too. There aren’t many people who seem to have a dedicated hard line to everyone’s hearts. That was just… him.

She stumbles up the stairs gracelessly (she wants her usual confidence back, what the _hell_ is this jagged crack down the centre of her heart doing to the rest of her that she can't even walk from place to place normally?) and finds her way to the room where Peter and Moz are hiding out. Neither of them remarks on her appearance, or her bearing, which she silently thanks them for as she moves across the room to shut the curtains.

"Thank you," Mozzie murmurs.

"It's not a problem. I didn't know you were here till Elizabeth told me, and I didn't think I'd have to hide, but I heard something about stapler heists - sorry, _sorry_ ," she says quickly as Mozzie flinches and the mass of comforter that must be Peter shudders, "- and I don't think I would have lasted more than a minute down there-"

"Shhhhh," Mozzie says, calmly, too calmly, over her weak, desperate attempt at a laugh.

"I-"

"Calm down." He pats the free half of the bed. She sits, finally takes her heels off, and lies down on the bed, and feels... safe. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this bizarre sense of calm overtakes her, and she mouths a surprised "Oh," which Mozzie only responds to with a serene nod.

She isn't even hidden under a blanket, but somehow, here, surrounded by quiet breathing and kindred spirits, she feels like she's in some underground cavern, cool and safe.

She wasn't expecting that.

-:-

Peter uncurls carefully - he knows Moz is somewhere near him, and he heard Sara's voice a little while back, and he doesn't want to bump into anyone. He ignores his mussed up hair and finds his bed occupied by Sara and Moz instead of himself and El. It's an odd picture, not made any more realistic by the fact that neither of them really appears conscious of where they are.

He shifts awkwardly. His back hurts, and he really wants to lie on his side of the bed, but Sara's there.

"Sara," he says, in a voice that's shakier and softer than he thought it'd be, "do you mind shifting to the middle of the bed?"

"Yes," she says, not sharply, calmly, like she just granted him a wish. Except that she didn't.

"Mozzie," he tries, but Moz is already shaking his head.

He grumbles in the back of his throat and shifts to the middle himself, tries and fails to rest his head comfortably in the valley of two otherwise comfortable pillows, shifts miserably, they shouldn't even be allowed to do that, this is _his bed_ -

-and then he bursts out laughing. Loud enough to draw angry glares from both sides of the bed, but he doesn't really care, he feels _so light_ , "Neal's dead," he chokes out between gales of laughter, the words are surprisingly easy, "and I'm fighting you over bed space." He keeps laughing, he feels almost hysterical, he shouldn't be this happy, it makes no sense, but this is laughter not happiness, and the heartbreak's still all there, but he can feel that this is a moment he's going to remember for a long time now, count on for an occasional smile, he should make the most of it -

\- and Sara joins in. Delighted peals of laughter, the loud, ringing kind, he didn't think she had it in her. Even Moz contributes a reluctant chuckle or two. Elizabeth appears at the doorway, looking concerned, the sound of heels on stairs from a little while ago suddenly makes sense, and he'd try to explain it again, but he's just shaking his head and laughing, the comforter lazily curled around him, and El smiles from the doorway, more brilliantly than he thought she would for a long time, and they're going to be okay. They're going to be _okay_.

-:-

Neal wakes up gasping, he could swear on anything he holds dear that just moments ago, he was surrounded by bodies, Peter, Moz, Sara, Elizabeth, he thinks he saw Hughes too, he doesn't know, but there were _so many_ , and all he has in his hands are silk sheets.

 _I want to go... I want to... I want... I..._ he can't remember, Riverside Drive, DeKalb Avenue, his old apartment with Kate, one of Mozzie's warehouses? He _doesn't know_ , but it's stopped up all his breaths, and he needs to get something out.

" _Home_ ," he chokes out, finally, "I want to go _home_ ," and oh, dear god, he's sobbing, but he shouldn't be, he's lying in a bed that he made, from the springs to the foam to the fabric, and he scattered thorns in it himself, that was all him.

He clutches a pillow to his chest and pretends it's someone, anyone, just as long as he doesn't have to be alone here. But he is, but he is, but he _is_.


End file.
